SHINE ON, HARVEST MOON...OR DID IT?

Swear not by the moon, the inconstant 
moon, that monthly changes in her circled orb... *

When I think about the siege of Glenrowan one of the first images 
conjured up is from my favourite Kelly author, Max Brown:
"...excitement waxed intense at the clatter of horses being unloaded and
the sound of police making their way towards the veranda (sic) in whose
shadow, cast by the harvest moon, the outlaws were now waiting..." (Ned
Kelly: Australian Son). The image continues to be painted by
Superintendent Hare in his July 2, 1880 report from Rupertswood,
Sunbury, Vic: "...Instantly three persons also commenced firing
from the verandah which was in total darkness, the moonbeams at the back
of house caused our men to be plainly seen..." Civilian volunteer
Charles Rawlins who was with Hare's party of police at the time adds:
"....I heard a sound on the verandah which was in deep shadow, whilst we
were all standing in the clear moonlight...." Brushstrokes added by
Charles White include "The moon was shining brightly at the time..."
while "Lives of Twelve Bad Men" dabs in with "Behind the hotel the moon
shone brilliantly, throwing the advancing police into full light.."
Of course amongst all that illumination and shadow we know that
once the firing started it really was a case with the Kellys that time!
It is so easy to imagine that cold June night as the Kelly Gang and the
police fought it out amidst the smoke and moonlight. I have read a few
reports in books, articles and online which state that the moon was not
just shining brightly or brilliantly but was actually full at the time
the troopers arrived and headed towards Mrs. Jones's Inn for the fateful
showdown (approx. 3 AM June 28,
1880). I am not sure why Mr. Brown in his book referred to the moon as a
harvest moon, since the full moon in June is usually called the honey
moon, the rose moon, the strawberry moon or the flower moon. The full
moon closest to the Autumnal Equinox*** is called the harvest moon and
usually occurs in September. But as it turns out the moon was not
actually full during the siege nor was it full on either of the
preceding couple of days when Aaron Sherritt was killed at the Woolshed
and the Kelly Gang entered into Glenrowan. The only author to get it right was 
Bill Coffey, in 'The Brackens', yet in Ian Jones's "A Short
Life" we read: "In 1879 Hare had noted a pattern in the gang's
exploits: that their depredations were committed at full moon, because
they had to ride through the night-generally two days after the full
moon..." ** The text continues with:
"Hare scorned the DSA's warning on 25 June. The following day was
a Saturday and the moon was full. The Kelly Gang would be riding..... As
the full moon was rising behind them out across the Oxley Flats, they
rode back to Glenrowan and roused seven labourers from the four railway
tents..."
John Molony in "Ned Kelly" states: "It was the night of a
full moon and the dark shape of Morgan's Lookout stood up behind the
hotel, brooding over the farce enacted by the men below." At
Crimelibrary.com we read "..by the light of a full moon, the police
returned fire..." and a Glenrowan historical marker page has "In the
full moonlight, Ned should not have missed..." Conversely, we
also have those who say that there was no moon out that night during the
time of the siege or that it was so dark that nothing much could be
seen. A witness to the siege, John Lowe, wrote a letter reproduced here on
the glenrowan1880 website  where he says: "We heard the dropping of truck
doors; unloading of horses; men talking and things were all of a bustle
for a short time. We could see objects moving - it was a fairly clear
night - no moon...."
I have to admit that even here on the Glenrowan1880 site
there is a page where it was mentioned as being a full moon night.
We all just accepted it as fact, no one knew to question the
veracity of it...until just recently.... During a web search I
came across an interesting bit that I figured would fit in perfectly
here on site. It was by an Australian Railway enthusiast named Ray
Murphy and concerned the original Glenrowan Railway clock. I contacted
him and invited him to visit Glenrowan1880.com and asked him if he would
consider reworking his posting for use here. After exchanging a few
chatty emails, I received one containing a slight site correction: that
the moon was not full during the siege of Glenrowan!----So, after that Dave 
and I decided to put the Glenrowan Railway Clock Mystery on the backburner 
and to go with this new development. Mr. Murphy has been very
helpful and friendly and taken a-lot of his time to outline the details
of his theory and answered many questions and for that I am grateful.
Since that first feedback email he has done further in-depth analysis,
with the results below, and noted that it falls just a tad short of the
half moon but is just barely hours away from being so! Some great
findings and terrific detective work nonetheless!
But, I did not just take his word for it, though I had no reason to
doubt him, his research or his computer program! I went to other sources
and all confirmed his findings. From an historical calendar at
http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/monthly.html?month=6&year=1880&country=29
to NASA's Phases of the Moon 1801-1900 site located at
http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/phase/phases.1801-1900.html to the
U.S. Naval Observatory's Virtual Reality Moon Phase Pictures Calculator
located at http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/vphase.html it all falls in line
that the moon was full on June 22, 1880.
..............................................
Ray Murphy has made these observations to prove his theory---
(1) When the Moon is conjunct the Sun (in the same degree of the zodiac
as the Sun appears to be from Earth) it is said to be a New Moon - that
is no Moon.
(2) When the Moon is *opposite* the Sun it is a Full Moon.
(3) This cycle from New Moon to Full Moon and back to New Moon takes
29.530 days.
(4) We also have another Moon cycle (measured in a different way) which
is 27.23 days, but that doesn't concern us for this purpose.
(5) The position of the Moon (or any celestial body) is always reckoned
from a "geocentric" point of view - that is an"Earth centred" point of
view - so the positions of celestial bodies are always identical for all
places on Earth at the same moment. The only difference is that people's
clocks show different times, or some people have sunlight and others
darkness.
(6) Universal Time (UT) is the time that science uses for astronomy. It
used to be called GMT (Greenwich Mean Time), but this new name is used
because it has an extremely tiny difference.
(7) The old term "phases of the Moon" are not referred to very much in
science, but they correspond to the amount area of the Moon which is
visible ie: A half Moon is when half of the Moon is obscured by the
Earth. This occurs when the Moon has travelled about *half* the distance
between a New Moon and a Full Moon; or a Full Moon and a New Moon. I've
just had a quick look at the position of the Full Moon prior to the
siege at Glenrowan, and can see that it occurred at about 23:30 Local
Mean Time for Victoria on 22nd June, 1880. This was about 13:50 GMT in
London (or Greenwich).on the same date - because Greenwich was 9 hrs 40
mins behind Victoria.
The following New Moon occurred at about 00:40 Local Mean Time for
Victoria on 7th July, 1880. This is about 15:00 on the previous day (6th
July) at Greenwich.
The difference in time (or days) between that Full Moon and New Moon at
Glenrowan is therefore :
TU- 22nd = 0 days <--23:30 Full Moon (13:50 GMT)
WE- 23rd = 1 days
TH - 24th = 2 days
FR - 25h = 3 days
SA - 26th = 4 days
SU - 27th = 5 days <--23:30 = past the halfway point by half a day.
= 5 full days to 23:30 Sunday night plus 3.5 hrs to 3am Monday MORN. MO
-28th = 6 days <-- 23:30 Monday NIGHT
TU - 29th = 7 days <--19:40 = Half Moon = 7 days less 3hrs 50 mins. So
we can see by the above figures that at 23:30 hrs at Glenrowan on Sunday
night, the Moon had travelled 5 full days out of a possible 6.8 days to
the half moon position. It then travelled from 23:30 on Sunday to
3am on Monday (another 1/7 of a day) - giving 5 and 1/7 days in total
from the previous Full Moon. This picture of what the moon would have
looked like is from the NASA site - http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/
 

..............................................

So there! It was not full! It would seem that
this was actually a waning gibbous**** moon, as my husband Chuck kept
insisting to me! But was practically the half, so very close as 
Mr. Murphy has pointed out!
So now that we have supposedly disproved the notion that the moon was
full any time during June 26-28, 1880, what does it mean? Maybe some
would say: so what? It does not change what happened those fateful few
19th century days...granted it does not, but maybe it can change
something here in the 21st century, maybe it can make us not blindly
accept everything we read as truth (whether Kelly related or not) in
newspapers, magazines, books or on websites and that we do have the
right and the privilege to question any and everything! Getting the
answers may be the hard part!
In closing, I hope that those of a less scientific bent (I number
myself among them) did not get too bogged down or lost in the technical
parts. Again, I want to thank Ray Murphy for being the catalyst for
this whole article and for his expertise and his providing of the
detailed astronomical explanation. He has been a treasure trove of
knowledge and an invaluable resource!
Also thanks to my husband, Chuck Hollingsworth, who
patiently took time to explain certain points and draw some diagrams
about the phases of the moon to help me get a clearer picture, he was
truly in his element!
And last but not least, thanks to Dave, who
encouraged me to do this article and who helped me find/verify some of
the quotes in his vast collection of books and historical newpapers and
documents. Also thanks to Dave for providing this website for all of us
to learn and to (N)educate!
.................
Notes:
* quote from 'Romeo & Juliet' by William Shakespeare

** The Euroa and Jerilderie events for the Kellys did take place
during full moon phases

***Though the Autumnal Equinox signals the beginning of Fall in the
Northern Hemisphere, it signals the beginning of Spring in the Southern
Hemisphere, but is still called Autumnal Equinox, see here for details
http://www.ecology.com/archived-links/autumna-equinox/

 ****The moon phases of New/Full/Quarter are considered primary phases
with the Gibbous and Crescent phases being considered intermediate
phases.

added March 29, 2004

I would like to reinsert a slight explanation which I had edited out of
the original story...both Chuck and Ray had pointed out that the view of
the moon which we are seeing in the photograph from NASA is what the
Northern Hemisphere would be seeing, for the Southern Hemisphere, the
moon is seen upside down from what the rest of the world sees, so just
mentally literally "turn it upside down" to see the moon as it was for
Australia, in other words as Chuck joked: look at the picture while
standing on your head!

Written by Sharon Hollingsworth for www.glenrowan1880.com